On Some SCO letters

(Forwarded from NY Fair Use discussion list)

-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Sulzberger <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 19:49:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [fairuse-talk] [ma-linux] SCO letters (fwd)



 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
 Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 17:28:43 -0500
 From: Przemek Klosowski <[email protected]>
 To: [email protected]
 Subject: [ma-linux] SCO letters

 Slashdot published recently more info on SCO communications related 
to their Linux lawsuit. I wanted to share some thougths with you on 
that.

 I always maintained that there is an analogy between the software 
technology and scientific knowledge. Just like science is the basis 
for our civilization, software underlies the expanding digital sphere 
of our lives. The development model of both science and sofware can 
vary between proprietary and public, and the society has to make a 
policy choice about supporting the right mix.

 Even though scientific and technological knowledge started as 
proprietary, we as society made a historical choice, dating back to 
the age of Enlightenment, to develop knowledge in a collegial, public 
fashion. This model, of course, works rather well, and no one 
seriously argues that it should be rolled back to some kind of 
proprietary science development.

 Similarly, I argue that software, whose importance tracks the growing 
influence of computing on our lives, must be developed in a public 
model; the Free Software is currently the closest approach, which 
eventually will be augmented by some sort of peer-reviewed public 
commitment, just as is the case for scientific research.

 The analogy of software and science is not perfect; but I argue that, 
firstly, the negative effects of closed software are almost identical 
to negative effects of closed knowledge: it forces duplicate work, 
creates artificial monopolies, and slows down progress. Secondly, 
because software _IS_ the infrastructure of the digital age, there is 
the issue of public interest, and the development model must 
accomodate that.

 In this context, the strategy of SCO in their Linux lawsuit is 
especially retrograde. Their position, as laid out in their recently 
issued letters
 	  http://sco.tuxrocks.com/Docs/IBM/Doc-41-I.pdf

 seems to counter the very idea of a public stake in technical 
knowledge. It occurred to me to modify their argument, 
substituting 'human knowledge' for 'software'. Here's what we'd get:

> As you may know, the development process for public scientific
> knowledge has differed substantially from the development process
> for other enterprise scientific research. Commercial research is
> built by carefully selected and screened teams of scientists
> working to build proprietary scientific results. The process is
> designed to monitor the security and ownership of intellectual
> property rights associated with the knowledge.

> By contrast, much of human scientific knowledge has been built
> from contributions by numerous unrelated and unknown scientists,
> each contributing a small scientific discovery. There is no
> mechanism inherent in the public science development process to
> assure that intellectual property rights, confidentiality or
> security are protected.  The public science process does not
> prevent inclusion of knowledge that has been stolen outright, or
> developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts.

Put this way, their argument is nonsensical, and would find no support 
in anyone even a tiny bit familiar with the scientific process, which 
arguably forms the basis of our civilization.

 		Przemek Klosowski, Ph.D. <[email protected]>
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